Tag Archives: liquidated damages

A United States Magistrate Judge has ruled in the favor of more than 450 Kansas City, Missouri firefighters following their FLSA lawsuit against the city. In a 2019 lawsuit, Kansas City firefighters claimed the city failed to include a wide range of wage augments in their overtime rate of pay. The FLSA requires “all remuneration for employment paid to, or ...

In the latest bit of legal wrangling between the City of Martinsburg and its professional firefighters, the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals has denied the city’s appeal seeking to reverse an earlier ruling by a lower court, in favor of the firefighters. As a result, the 2018 lawsuit which centers around a highly unique West Virginia statute related to ...

An investigation conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has found that the Rio Blanco County Sheriff’s Office violated the FLSA by not paying law enforcement officers for the time spent working before and after scheduled work shifts. The FLSA requires employers pay overtime eligible employees for all hours worked. This includes time spent before and after assigned work ...

The City of Portsmouth, Virginia has reached a settlement with a group of fifteen paramedics ending an FLSA lawsuit filed in late 2020. The medics alleged the city failed to pay them overtime as required by the FLSA and Virginia Law. For more on the medics’ claims, including a copy of the complaint, click here. The terms of the settlement ...

The City of New York has agreed to pay four current and former FDNY Motor Vehicle Operators (MVOs) and their attorneys a total of $429,901.18 to settle an unpaid overtime lawsuit. The MVOs, filed the lawsuit in June 2019, alleging the city failed to pay them for required pre-and-post shift activities (i.e., off-the-clock work), time spent working during unpaid meal ...

Following an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Wage and Hour Division, the City of East St. Louis, Illinois has been ordered to pay almost $160,000 in back wages and penalties to a total of 19 city police officers. The DOL investigation uncovered several FLSA violations. In particular, the DOL found that the city failed to pay police ...

On April 9, 2021, the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Wage and Hour Division (WHD)—the arm of the DOL responsible for enforcing the FLSA—officially rescinded a controversial employer-friendly enforcement practice implemented less than a year ago. As a general rule, the FLSA requires liquidated damages be assessed after finding an employer violated the Act’s minimum wage or overtime requirements. Liquidated ...

The City of Selma, Alabama is the latest city facing an FLSA lawsuit filed by city firefighters. Three Assistant Fire Marshals/Fire Inspectors filed the suit, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama, on April 19, 2021. Richard C. Byrd, Willie J. Mason Jr., and Aeneas L. Pettway allege that the city failed to pay them overtime ...

Today’s FLSA Question: I am a full-time paid firefighter working for a small fire department with 13 full-time firefighters. We work 24 hours on duty, followed by a 48 hours off-duty for an average of 56 hours per week. My department has a strange way of paying overtime. Instead of paying firefighters for overtime worked in a regular bi-weekly paycheck; ...

The City of Davis, California recently settled an FLSA lawsuit filed by a small group of city firefighters for a total of $1,268,912. The lawsuit, which was filed on July 26, 2016, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, was centered around whether payments made directly to firefighters in lieu of receiving employer sponsored medical benefits ...